Vietnam's State Securities Commission has recently allowed in principle the first joint stock commercial bank in the country to list its shares in the local bourse.

Saigon Thuong Tin Joint Stock Commercial Bank (Sacombank), the biggest joint stock commercial bank in Vietnam with registered capital of nearly 1.9 trillion Vietnamese dong (VND) (roughly 119. 5 million U.S. dollars), will list its shares in Ho Chi Minh City Securities Trading Center late June or early July, the bank said Tuesday.

After the listing, Sacombank, will issue additional 30 million shares, including 10 million for its strategic partners and the rest for the public, the bank said.

Several major foreign financial institutions, including the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank Corporation (HSBC), the Standard Chartered Bank and the Holdings Financial Funds have acquired shares in joint stock commercial banks in Vietnam.

Now, Vietnam has 35 kinds of listed shares, 361 kinds of listed bonds, mostly government bonds, and one listed investment fund, with combined face value of nearly 53,706 billion VND (nearly 3. 378 billion dollars).

The country has recently planned that the local stock market would have to post an annual growth of 150 percent so that its value would reach 16 billion dollars by 2010. It is striving to feed the local bourse with shares of more equitized foreign- invested enterprises, equitized state-run firms, and commercial banks.

Source: Xinhua